PLEASANTON — Pole dancing is working its way out of strip clubs and into fitness centers.

Exercise buffs are finding that pole fitness, as many people prefer to call it, requires a surprising amount of strength and control that provides a great workout for the entire body.

“When I started pole, I was very strong,” recalled Bel Jeremiah, owner of Twirly Girls Pole Fitness. “I didn’t’ realize that when I took a pole class that I’d be using muscles in a different way. I was in relatively good shape, but I was proven wrong after I took my first class. It was pretty tough. Every muscle in my body ached for days after I took my first class.”

Jeremiah was so smitten with pole fitness that she opened her first pole studio in Danville nine years ago. As the studio’s popularity grew, she relocated six years ago to a larger location in downtown Pleasanton. While most people associate pole dancing with strippers, the sport actually dates back more than 800 years to the traditional Indian sport of mallakhamb, where athletes scaled wooden poles for endurance and strength.

The sport became popular in China, where acrobats performed gravity-defying tricks as they leapt between two poles. In the 1920s, traveling circuses and sideshows featured acrobats performing stunts on the poles that held up performance tents. The first recorded pole routine for burlesque was at an Oregon strip club in 1968, but it didn’t gain popularity at strip clubs until the 1980s. In recent years, pole acrobatics have become popular once again with circuses, particularly the artful Cirque du Soleil shows.

“Pole dancing has existed for (hundreds) of years, and it’s evolved over time,” said Seanmichael Rau, the reigning U.S. national men’s pole champion. “It’s a great way to work out. But more importantly, there’s a global social community that has evolved around pole. There are many different apparatus in the circus world, but pole is a really unique apparatus.”

Rau took up pole fitness in late 2011 when a co-worker encouraged him to try a class.

“I was pretty adverse to regular gym workouts,” he said. “Initially, it was the pole community that drew me in. It was a really fun, relaxing weekly routine that was also really challenging. It’s really hard. At first, there’s not a whole lot you can do because you’re not strong enough or coordinated enough.”

The Berkeley resident stuck with the pole workouts, getting stronger and developing more complex routines on the floor-to-ceiling poles.

“Through pole, you learn that you can use any muscle in your body to hold onto a pole in ways you never thought you could,” Rau said. “It was a really exciting, new thing to learn.”

Rau, who works out and teaches at Twirly Girls, entered his first national competition in 2013. A year later, he won top honors at the Pole Sport Organization competition in New York.

“In August, I won the U.S. National Championship, which is the first time they’ve ever had a U.S. men’s champion,” he said proudly, noting that he is now invited to perform around the world.

Pole enthusiasts can find plenty of studios in San Francisco and Oakland, but the specialized workouts are harder to come by in the suburbs. Aside from Twirly Girls, Oakland-based Atomic Allure’s new Livermore studio seems to be the only other pole fitness studio in the East Bay suburbs.

“It’s definitely getting more mainstream,” said Donna Watson, owner of Atomic Allure. “There’s still kind of that negative stigma that’s tied to it. It’s still developing for people to see the fitness benefits and aspects of it, but it’s definitely more open than what it was before.”

Watson prefers to call the workouts at her studios pole or vertical fitness.

“I like it because of the dance and the fitness aspect of it,” she said. “It’s definitely empowering. Even though it’s really challenging, when you finally get something, it’s solely you. The teacher can teach you something, but you have to do it. There’s a feeling of accomplishment.”

Rita Pearson is a three-time kidney transplant recipient who’s found strength and fitness through her regular workouts at Twirly Girls.

“I was out with some girlfriends and the topic came up over mojitos,” Pearson said of her first foray into pole fitness. She and a friend signed up for a class at Twirly Girls five years ago.

“What we liked about her studio is the fitness angle,” she said. “There were other studios in the city, but they were more about the (sex) factor.”

Jeremiah, who is also a personal trainer at other fitness clubs, works closely with clients in her small studio to make sure everyone is exercising at the right pace and level.

Pole fitness is for anyone, regardless of body type, level of fitness or age, Jeremiah noted. Her clients range in age from 18 to 65, and more men are getting into the sport.

learn more
Twirly Girls Pole Fitness hosts its annual Lovely Rita fundraiser for the National Kidney Foundation at 7 p.m. April 25 in the studio at 288 Spring St. in Pleasanton. Performers will showcase their pole routines. Admission is $20.